Of all the low points during the Knicks’ 7-21 start, few, if any, were worse than a 122-111 loss to the lowly Hawks on Dec. 16.

It wasn’t just that the Knicks lost. After all, they were in the middle of a seven-game losing streak. Rather, it was the fact Atlanta is one of the worst teams in the NBA yet the Knicks helped make them look like world champions.

Atlanta shot 63.2 percent from the floor as the Knicks continued to flounder.

The Knicks expect a different effort tonight when they face the Hawks again at the Garden.

“We’re a different team now,” Maurice Taylor said. “The team we were then and the team we are today are nothing alike.”

That’s what a five-game winning streak will do. Eddy Curry said that as rotten as the Knicks were playing then, he remained hopeful they would turn things around.

“We knew that at some point we needed to get into gear,” said Curry, who was on a Bulls team last year that started the season with nine straight losses but ended up in the playoffs. “I’m glad it happened before it was too late for us.”

Despite their still ugly 12-21 record, the Knicks stand two games out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. That, plus the awful showing against the Hawks last month, make Larry Brown confident the Knicks won’t suffer a letdown tonight.

With his next victory, Brown will have 1,000 in his NBA career. “When one of the coaches told me that, I looked back at our schedule in December and I would have been thrilled if we won just one game,” said Brown, whose NBA record is 999-762 . . . Brown said he doesn’t expect the league to take any action against Taylor, who made contact with a referee in the 117-115 overtime win over Dallas on Wednesday. “We looked at the tape and the ref put his hands on him. Mo never even looked at the referee” . . . Jamal Crawford’s 25 points off the bench Wednesday provided more evidence that he’s one of the top sixth men in the league. “I think our depth is one of our strengths,” Crawford said.